


The Birth and Death of Melancholy

by fayrose



Category: Dracula (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayrose/pseuds/fayrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before Mina's wedding, she finds herself on Lucy's doorstep. But Lucy isn't alone.</p>
<p>Deals with the aftermath of Mina's rejection of Lucy and the events that followed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Birth and Death of Melancholy

If you had asked her how she had come to be on the Westenra’s snow-dusted doorstep, Mina would not have been able to tell you. Last she remembered, she was sat on an ice-cold church bench, her hands folded demurely in her lap. Melancholy pressed in on her like a second skin, cloying and heavy. The church around her was unrecognisable from her last visit. It was hung in fragrant garlands and candles littered the walkways and alter, ready to be lit. No church had ever looked so beautiful, and yet…

She couldn’t bring herself to knock, so she stood there collecting snow and feeling foolish. If she saw Lucy, what would she say? Nothing had changed. How could she tell Lucy that?

Before she could flee, the door opened on what seemed to be all of the Westenra staff.

“Miss Murray,” the butler greeted with a bow. It was Christmas Eve and every man wore a sprig of holly on his lapel. The women wore ivy. “It seems our good Miss Lucy has come down with Christmas spirit.” When Mina looked only confused, he clarified, “She has given us all the night off.”

“And a fat lot of good that’ll be when it’s Christmas morning and nothing has been done!” the cook complained.

“Hush, woman,” the butler scolded. “I do hope that your own staff shows you more respect, Miss Murray.”

Mina shook her head and smiled to say that it didn’t matter. She didn’t really have staff. Not the way Lucy did.

“It has been so quiet here without Mrs Westenra and yourself. I’m sure Miss Lucy would love to see you.”

Did that mean that Lucy was to spend Christmas Day alone?

“I’m sure,” Mina replied, though she was anything but. Perhaps it was good the house would be unstaffed.

With a smile and a nod of her head to each of them, Mina stood and let the staff pass. She knew them all well, and they her. They must have noticed her absence. When the last of them had crossed the threshold, Mina bowed her head and stepped inside. It was strange to see the house so empty. Especially at Christmas. Even when they returned in the dead of night, there were always maids to greet them, footmen rushing up and down the servant’s stairs and the crackle of fire from the kitchen.

Empty as it was, there was no one to take her coat and she had no idea where the cloak cupboard was – that was the domain of the servants and in the Westenra house that meant it was off limits – meaning that Mina was forced to hang her coat on the hat stand and leave her gloves folded in her pocket. When her hat had been removed as well and hung atop her coat, she could put off climbing the stairs no more.

The first step was the hardest. A memory flashed up and enveloped her. Lucy was sat on the stairs, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. Her arm lay placidly limp in Mina’s hand and her doe-wide eyes fixed on the two fingers Mina had pressed to her wrist. Minutes later, Lucy had been laid flat on her back on her bed, her blouse laid open and Mina’s cold stethoscope pressed beneath her breast. Mina hadn’t understood then why Lucy had been so terrified. Now she wondered if Lucy wasn’t afraid of giving herself away, as if Mina could hear her love in the rhythm of her heart.

It was a silly notion but for some reason it made Mina’s stomach flutter. Not that that meant anything. Nothing at all. She was just nervous. Of course she was. She had every right to be after what Lucy had told her.

She thought of calling out to Lucy, announcing her presence, but the house was so quiet that she couldn’t stand to break the silence. Except when she reached the top of the stairs she realised that the house wasn’t exactly silent. There were faint noises coming from Lucy room – sobs and keening. A stab of guilt sliced through Mina’s heart. Was it for her that Lucy cried? For her rejection. Mina could see now that she had been a little harsh. It was Lucy, after all. Her Lucy who had always been there, closer than a sister. But that was the problem.

In the moment it took to reach Lucy’s door, Mina’s hands began to shake. She reached out, pressing it against the turquoise-painted wood and pressed. It opened without a sound and Lucy, head thrown back and whimpering, had tears streaming down her face, but not at all in the fashion that Mina had envisioned. She was also very certainly not alone.

For almost half a minute, Mina stood there transfixed and unnoticed. Lucy’s hair was in beautiful disarray, spread beneath her head like a pool of sunlight. Her face contorted with expressions that Mina had never seen before – her eyes screwed shut and her red-pink lips parted wide with unrestrained groans and moans. Though Mina had seen Lucy bare of clothes before, she had never truly _looked_. She couldn’t help it now, not with Lucy so open and brazen in her bareness. Her back arched again and again, making her breasts heave. They rose up from her chest like rolling snow-covered hills, her pale pink nipples hard at their peaks. Mina’s mouth went dry and she swallowed, a tingling warmth spreading in her belly. Her eyes cast down the firm plane of Lucy’s stomach, a vast expanse of cream-coloured skin, sculpted by the arching of Lucy’s back to show a V of muscles leading down between her thighs. But it was there that the tingling in Mina’s stomach turned to sickness.

Disgust flooded through her, expanding until her whole body was thrumming with it, pulsing with it. There was a head between Lucy’s pale thighs – dull blonde hair falling over Lucy’s blemishless skin, shielding her from view.

A strangled cry tore from Mina’s throat and Lady Jane’s head rose from between Lucy’s legs, smiling victoriously, viciously. Her hand, fingers long and bony, smoothed over Lucy’s thigh possessively.

“Lucy, dear, we have company,” she purred, her eyes hungry like a cat’s.

Lucy’s eyes snapped open and she bolted up, pulling her knees to her chest and blushing so furiously that Mina could almost feel the heat coming off her.

Lady Jane licked her lips and sat up on her knees, uncaring that she was just as bare as Lucy was.

“Miss Murray, what a wonderful surprise. I do hope that you will join us,” she said mildly, as if asking Mina to tea.

Lucy jerked at Jane’s suggestion and Mina felt a pang of protectiveness for her. She scowled at Jane, anger burning in her disgust.

Unperturbed, Jane turned to Lucy. “What do you think, little Lucy? Don’t be shy now. All of us here know that you would much rather it was Mina’s head between your thighs. Isn’t that right, Miss Murray?”

“Please,” Lucy begged. “Stop it. Leave.”

Jane’s smile only turned wickeder.

“She asked you to leave,” Mina growled, the pang of protectiveness she had felt earlier swelling to a torrent. “Now.”

Lucy raised her head, surprised at Mina’s defence of her.

Jane looked between them, smirking.

“I said, leave!” Mina shouted so loudly that even Jane jumped.

“My, my, don’t you roar like a lion over his lioness? Anyone would think that you were jealous.” Jane rose from the bed and crossed to pick up her dress from the floor. She slipped it on with ease, like she had made this exit a million times before. “You must excuse me, ladies. I have other business to attend to.”

And with that she left. Mina held her breath as she waited for the sound of the front door closing behind Lady Jane, leaving them alone.

“Thank you,” Lucy whispered, her eyes downcast.

Thank you for what, Mina wondered. For making Jane leave or for interrupting in the first place?

“She’s not a nice woman, Lucy. Everyone knows how she uses men up and spits them out. She is hardly discreet. If I had been anyone else…” Mina knew that her voice sounded angry, but she wasn’t sure why. All she knew was that seeing Jane with Lucy had turned her stomach and that everything that Jane had done and said afterwards had made Mina want to slap her. Or worse.

When Lucy only nodded meekly, Mina sighed and went to Lucy’s dresser to retrieve her a nightgown.

“Here,” she said, holding it out to Lucy, her eyes cast out the window. Lucy took it gratefully and turned to clothe herself.  

Mina blushed when her gaze came back from the window and fell on the roundness of Lucy’s buttocks. She knew she shouldn’t look, but she couldn’t help it. Her eyes were drawn there and the anger in her stomach become another sort of tingling.

“Why are you here?” Lucy asked, turning and meeting Mina’s eyes for the first time in weeks. It struck Mina speechless. How had she never noticed the ever shifting colour of Lucy’s eyes?

“I was at the church and… Your flowers, they’re beautiful. And the candles lining the walkways. I would never have thought of that.”

Lucy nodded, her eyes shifting to a disappointed shade of grey. They both knew this was more her forte than Mina’s.

“Why did you go to Lady Jane?” Mina’s question surprised even herself.

“Why did you come here?” It was a reasonable rebuttal. Mina knew that she had not answered Lucy’s questions, so why should Lucy answer hers.

“I thought this would be a wonderful adventure for us. I thought that you would be happy and that we would plan every detail together. I thought that we would lie awake at night dreaming of what it would be like to be married.”

“But we didn’t,” Lucy interjected before Mina could go any further. “You left all the planning to me like it was my wedding, not yours. Do you have any idea how painful that was? To plan the wedding of the woman you love, when she’s marrying someone else?”

Mina dropped her gaze, annoyed. “I’m not to blame for your feelings. I have done nothing to provoke them.”

Lucy laughed humourlessly. “Oh, is that right? Because you being wonderful and brave and clever and sweet and kind and funny and affectionate and _breathtakingly_ beautiful had nothing to do with this at all.”

Mina’s breath caught and she felt a blush creep up her cheeks.

“Oh Mina, I love everything that you are, can’t you see that? Every little bit of it. God, I even love how you burry yourself in your work to the point that you have to be reminded to eat and how useless you are at arranging flowers and engagement parties and weddings, and how you just assume that I will be there to do it for you.” Lucy’s chest was rising and falling wildly and Mina’s mouth went dry again at the sight of Lucy’s nipples beneath her nightgown. It couldn’t be desire that she was feeling. It had felt so different with Jonathan. So much tamer. Not nearly as overwhelming. And his words of devotion, had never stirred her so. They had never made her heart beat so fast or her chest feel so full. But when had Jonathan ever said anything to her like this? How did Lucy seem to love all the things about Mina that Jonathan seemed to dislike the most?

“I slept with Jonathan.” It was cruel thing to say but she couldn’t stand to think about the tingling that might be desire. Mina regretted it the moment she said it. She couldn’t stand the look of utter heartbreak in Lucy’s eyes. Lucy might not have been crying for her before, but she was now. Her lips trembled and her eyes shone and overflowed.

Mina thought about lying beneath Jonathan. It had been nice. Painful at first, but nice. She had enjoyed the way he had held her afterwards and how it had felt waking up naked beside him. But he hadn’t made her body tingle the way it had when she had seen Lucy writhe in pleasure. The solidness of his body had been comforting but it hadn’t made her head swim. She hadn’t _wanted_ it. She had felt no urge to touch it beyond a hand on his bicep to steady herself. Not like this compulsion to let her eyes fall to Lucy’s breasts or the illogical yearning to take Lucy’s nipple into her. Nor could she deny that the disgust that had turned her stomach at the sight of Lucy with Lady Jane had been angry jealousy. And why shouldn’t she be jealous? Hadn’t Lucy claimed to love her, yet she opened her thighs for another woman? Anger and jealousy burgeoned with Mina’s desire, threatening to explode.

“Then why sleep with _her_?!” Mina cried, her hands shaking and her cheeks wet with tears. “How can you claim to love me yet welcome someone else into your bed?”

“Because you made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want to be there!” Lucy shouted back, beautiful in her anger. Her hair, which had somehow fallen back into soft curls, was flying around her face. Mina had always loved her hair down. There was something more honest about it, more like the Lucy that only Mina got to see. A Lucy who was soft and kind and warm. It was the Lucy that smiled at her sleepily in the twilight hours as they snuggled close in bed. But the hair was deceptive. This Lucy was not soft, but angrier than Mina had ever seen her.  “You slept with Jonathan, why shouldn’t I have someone too?”

“Because you shouldn’t!” Mina screamed, knowing as soon as she said it how stupid it sounded. She didn’t want anyone touching Lucy, no one but… her. And with that thought there was no going back.

She had admitted it, if only to herself. She wanted to be the one to make love to Lucy. It was her name and hers alone that she wanted to spill in ecstasy from Lucy’s lips. And she didn’t just desire her, she loved her. Where others found Lucy tiresome, Mina only found her endearing. She loved Lucy’s confidence and the way she smiled. She loved the sound of Lucy’s breaths when she was sleeping and the ring of her laugh. She had known all of this, of course she had, but that other thing – the desire – she had kept hidden even from herself.

“Why?!” Lucy screamed.

What could Mina say? That she was jealous? How exactly do you tell the woman that you rejected that you’ve changed your mind? Words… It couldn’t be in words then. Actions would have to do.

‘Surged’ was the not the right word. Neither was ‘flew’. They imply movement. Mina didn’t move. One moment she was stood by the window, the next she was so close to Lucy that she could see the all the stormy colours of her eyes. Lucy blinked and looked away, and Mina’s arms slipped around her waist. She was so delicate. So fine and small that Mina’s arms fit all the way around her waist, her hands curving around her sides. Lucy didn’t move, just stood there, head tilted up and eyes wide like a doe’s.

Mina had to lean down, not up, to kiss her and when she did, her whole world burst into wonderful, terrible colour. When she kissed Jonathan, she had to lean up and her arms went around his neck to steady herself, and Lucy’s did the same to her. Her elbows rested on Mina’s shoulders and her hands slipped into Mina’s hair. Kissing Lucy was nothing like kissing Jonathan. It wasn’t just that Lucy’s lips were softer or that Lucy’s was at first timidly still and then kissing her so dizzyingly gently. The real difference was in the way it made her feel. The tingling that she had felt before swelled until her whole body was alight with it. Her heart beat so fast that she was sure it would stop. Every brush of Lucy’s fingers against her scalp left fire in their wake. She was so overwhelmed that her grip on Lucy’s waist tightened and she felt Lucy gasp at it.

She felt a surge of unadulterated love for her Lucy then, who gasped at her touch, and she couldn’t wait a minute more to tell her.

“Because I love you, Lucy,” she breathed, lifting her chin to brush kisses over Lucy’s cheeks. They were salty and wet. She was crying. “What I feel for you… That is what desire feels like. I never knew before, but it is. It can’t be anything else.”

“How can you be sure?” Lucy asked, her eyes wide with uncertainty.

Mina slid her hands higher, over tender flesh that gave beneath her fingers. Lucy’s eyes closed and she kissed her again. She was sure. Surer than she had ever been before. She had thought it before of Jonathan, but that was but a shadow of what she felt now. This was desire and love and fear all, twisting and writhing in her belly, shuddering over her skin like a breeze. One kiss threw her further over the edge than Jonathan had managed with all his strained attentions.

It felt like flying, but it wasn’t enough. Her clothes felt too tight, like stiffened canvas on her skin. Her hands left Lucy’s waist to fumble with her buttons. But they were too big for the tiny holes they were pushed through and Lucy had to do it for her. She preferred that. Her hands were free to burry in Lucy’s angelic hair. It was like a crown that hair, a halo. When the buttons were undone, she let Lucy push her blouse of her shoulders and unhook her skirt. They fell away and Lucy rid her of her underthings too. The nightgown was far easier to remove. A single bow to loosen and they were both bare.

It was gentle and sweet. Mina was too afraid of hurting her and Lucy too afraid that Mina would change her mind. Later, when Lucy had slept for a while at her breast, Mina woke her up and made love to her the way that she deserved. Worshipful, like she was Goddess and Mina her acolyte.

“What happens now?” Lucy asked, her eyes fluttering closed as Mina ran her fingertips down her spine.

Mina smiled and kissed her swollen lips.

“You’re going to marry Jonathan.”

“Yes.”

“Do you love him?”

“Not the way I love you.” The caveat didn’t seem much consolation, even to Mina.

“Do you…”

“No,” Mina promised. “You’ve proven that to me.”

That made Lucy smile and Mina had to kiss her again.

Lucy would still hate Jonathan and Mina would pretend to love him. It wouldn’t be easy, but nothing worth fighting for ever was.


End file.
